Tam and I went along to the Melkweg the other night to see The Fratellis, and as usual, were dreading the Dutch support act. I feel a little rude saying that, but almost every single local band that we’ve seen has been very dull, usually what I like to call boredom rock (you know, those bands that aren’t nearly as exciting as Coldplay - no insult intended to Coldplay - and somehow don’t manage to be any specific type of music at all). They’re almost always the same, like no one dares do anything even slightly different. And as much as I like to be supportive of new bands, just the thought of one of those type of Dutch bands bums me out. (As a disclaimer, I should point out that there have been a few exceptions - Hospital Bombers and De Nieuwe Vrolijkheid, for example - that we really enjoyed.)

So you can imagine our surprise when About took the stage and they turned out to be one skinny guy with a computer (and some badass moves) and a chick with a guitar, playing some very awesome electronic-dance-pop-punk-indie. Tam and I were very excited indeed. They’re loud and chaotic, a mix of just about everything under the sun, but most definitely have enough of a pop sensibility to be fun and danceable as well as fresh and original. I couldn’t wait to get home and look them up (despite my prediction that a band named About would be hard to Google, which turned out to be very true) and knew they would be this week’s New Band.

I don’t know much about them, but I see that the myspace page refers to only one member and they’ve (he’s?) already been noticed by Pitchfork and Q magazine. There’s also mention of a debut album, Bongo, so I’ll have to look into how to get hold of that later. For now, listen and/or download some tracks from About’s myspace page.